 the most out of every ingredient. That's the mark of a maker. The KitchenAid Blender Collection. Welcome to the British Library food season, generously sponsored by KitchenAid. My name is Polly Russell and I'm a curator at the British Library and the curator and the founder of the food season, which is now in its third year. This year I've had the real pleasure of working with Angela Clutton as the season's guest director and when we were planning the season we really wanted to make sure that it was eclectic and relevant and this year of COVID and of Black Lives Matter which has so much brought attention to the inequalities in food production and consumption and shone a light on the lack of diversity in the food media and aspects of the food industry. This evening's event, Black British food stories could not be more relevant and nor could our panel. I will hand over in a minute to the chair, Melissa Thompson, but just a quick point of housekeeping. Please do ask the panel questions. There's a tab at the bottom of your screen and I know that they would love to hear from you. But Melissa Thompson, Melissa runs the food and recipe project, Foul Mouth's Food. She's a BBC food columnist and a champion of brilliant yet underrepresented people in food. A former pop-up chef, she also writes about food and representation for Waitrose magazine, Vittles and The Guardian. This year in June she wrote what I think is a landmark essay, a paper which changed I think people's idea and challenged the way that we think about the food industry called Black Eurasia and the food industry which I think everyone should read and today in The Guardian she had a wonderful piece published called Fried Chicken and Racism, which she may mention later. So over to you, Melissa. Thank you. Thank you, Polly. Thank you for that introduction and welcome everybody. Very excited about this. I'd like to introduce our incredible panel. First we have Tacombo Koike, who founded Tacombo's Kitchen, which is an award-winning food brand bringing a taste of Nigeria to the world. And last year she launched the London African Food Week, which is tasked with raising the profile and creating awareness of the African food experience to the mainstream, which is quite the task, I think we're realizing now. We have Zoe Adronia, who is a Shuttis activist and an entrepreneur from London by Ireland and Ghana. She's the founder and executive chef of Zoe's Ghana Kitchen, Sankofa, and also co-founder of Black Book, a platform for Black and non-white people working in hospitality and food media. And we're also joined by Riaz Phillips, who is a publisher and writer from London. His projects include Bellyful, Caribbean Food in the UK, a brilliant book, and Community Comfort, which was released this year, which also excellent, we'll talk about that later. And he's also written for the evening standard, The Guardian, Time Out, and many more. Welcome, everyone. Hello. Hi, it's lovely to be here. Good, good. I'd like to start by asking you, because this is about origins and journeys and junctions, which is the title of this talk. And what I'm keen to know from all of you is why did you start doing what you're doing? And I know that because of everything that's happened, especially recently in the last six months, that probably will have changed. But if I can ask you to come by first, remembering who you were and why you set out to do when you started, why did you start doing what you were doing? So I started to Cumber's Kitchen simply because I got tired of going out to festivals and going to street food events and not finding Nigerian food easily accessible. I lived in Washington, DC in 2013. And there was an amazing street food culture there. And again, the only kind of continent I wasn't really represented was Africa. And at the time, I'd actually made a joke to my friends that if I lived in DC that this is what I would do, not realizing that a couple years later, I was then going to get to London and actually start a street food business. But essentially, that was where it was. Street food is such a buzzing, amazing experience in Nigeria. And I remember growing up eating suya, which is like a barbecue skewer and meat, eating hot puff puff, eating akara. And I wanted to recreate that experience in London. I didn't think that it was going to grow as much as it has done the last five years. But essentially, I just wanted to eat suya in London. Fair play, understandable. And Zoe, same question to you. Back in 2010, when you started, Zoe's gone to kitchen. Why did you do it? I mean, in 2010, it was because the universe wasn't giving me any choice but making me do it. But when I had decided that it was a business, the motivation was the same motivation for starting Black Book, to be honest. So I still had those sort of core pillars in mind of equality, wealth creation, equity, visibility. So I came into a food scene that was very, very white. And I wanted to show people that there is a thing as a continent of amazing food in Africa. And I was going to use Ghana as my lens because obviously that's my heritage. But I wanted to kind of change the narrative around, A, what Africa looked like. Because I grew up in the 80s with a lot of negative stereotypes coming out of the media around Africa in terms of famine, poverty, war and all of that. And you know, my relationship with Africa was really different. And it had this vibrant, joyous culture of food, music, literature. And I thought food was the best and easiest way to kind of expand people's consciousness around, you know, accessing Africa. So the mission was to bring African food to the masses using, you know, my journey with Ghanaian food and my identity and relationship with Ghana as the lens really. And part of it was to bring, you know, I've spent 10 years telling people about these amazing flavors and ingredients. And I honestly naively thought then that in doing that, I would be sort of creating wealth for West Africa in terms of creating this kind of export opportunity for the people that grow that food and produce that food and those ingredients. You know, 10 years later, that's really not what's been happening. Big multinationals come and buy up all the crops, buy up all the land because people like those of us in this room make these ingredients and food accessible and popular. And then white industry comes and has the money and the resource, the manpower to kind of capitalize on that. So that's the only sort of part where my mission has changed slightly in terms of giving people that look like me and who are black and unwind food, the opportunity to make money and get visibility and also just have an equal footing with any other kind of cuisine, whether it's Italian and French or European or Americans, like African cuisine is actually as good, if not better than any of those. So yeah, that's where I am right now. Okay. Yeah, I just want to touch on a few of those, few of those points. And Rias, what about you? I mean, you published Bellyful in 2017. And, you know, I think with everything that everyone's doing, the position we're in now, you know, I think without kind of trying to praise you guys too much, but it just blows me away that you'll kind of have had the foresight to see that this was needed and it's been needed for a long time. And obviously that's really come into focus. But what prompted you, Rias, to start doing what you're doing? I think for me, there was like a realization that the representation and awareness of Caribbean food was still really lacking. I think sometimes when you have like a pivotal moment where, you know, one person in a scene gets really famous or one particular meal gets really famous, that kind of puts papers over the cracks to make you believe that some kind of progress has been made. But for me, I just felt that the representation of Caribbean food as a whole was really shallow. In particular, I was always going back to one certain meal of like jerk chicken. Sometimes I'd read guides where they were talking about a Trinidadian restaurant in relation to its jerk chicken. And if anyone who knows the distance between Jamaica and Trinidad is the same as London and Estonia. So for me, I just thought it was ridiculous how it just seemed almost lazy for lack of a better word, though, research in the depth that had gone into it. And at that point, the only thing that really existed were cookbooks. And I kind of just wanted to do something a bit different that a provided some sort of entry level representation to the cuisine of my heritage, and then be also shine a light on all the people and individuals who've been doing it for, you know, decades. Some some of the places I went to had been open for generations since the 1950s. And they'd rarely gone any newspaper coverage, any magazine coverage, any media coverage whatsoever. And I just thought that was shocking, especially in relation to these physical presence on a lot of these high streets and how that was being like erased when you talk about things like gentrification. And I just thought at that moment in time was like a perfect time to try and document all that. I'm glad you did. It's a brilliant book. And so also all three of you have spoken about a lack of representation, which I think is, you know, I think I don't think it's overreacting it to say that that seems really a problem that's not specific to black food in Britain, but it's probably most evident, I think. I mean, what have been the obstacles to sort of food from African countries and from the Caribbean islands hitting the mainstream? To combo. I remember in the early days of trying to even go to street food festivals and I would contact the organisers and they would tell me, oh, we already have an African food trader. And they'll be like, well, you do realise that Africa is a continent with over 54 countries. And also, even if you had a Nigerian food trader, that shouldn't stop you having another, you know, given another Nigerian food trader an opportunity because even within Nigeria alone, there are 254 tribes. The food that we eat differs across region to region. So there's not saying that just because you've got Sucumbus Kitchen doesn't mean that somebody else from Nigeria would be cooking the same food that I'm cooking. And so for me, it was just that, you know, that barrier to even getting to be able to actually give people the opportunity to have food from the continent and from Nigeria. The other thing as well for me, you know, and that's why I'm always very keen to highlight the fact that the food that I do is Nigerian. Sometimes I am inspired by West African ingredients because there are a lot of similarities. But there is no such thing as African cuisine because the food that we eat in Nigeria is not the same food that they eat in Algeria and it's not the same food that they eat in Zimbabwe. So for me, I sometimes feel that having that money car of African cuisine, again, is similar to what Andrea said. It's a lazy way of putting everything together when actually there are so many differences in Ghana, for example, you know, we cook similar food in Nigeria to Ghana and cuisine. But if you were to look at the BN beans that Zoe would cook and the way I would cook it, again, use of the same ingredients, but it would be like two completely different dishes. So for me, it's about really creating awareness. By the same time, really, I love authentic Nigerian food. I think Nigerian cuisine is top three on a good day and it's definitely not number three ever. And so for me, I'm always keen to introduce people to authentic Nigerian food that I grew up eating in the streets of Lagos. Because to me, that's the best way to introduce people to the cuisine. I don't feel that we need to change things up to March to bring people into the food that we grew up eating, because as Zoe rightly mentioned earlier, the food that we eat across the continent is amazing. It's incredible. And we don't need to change it up to March to have other people appreciate it and enjoy it as well. So for me, it's always really about introducing people to authentic Nigerian food, but in a way that suits a more Western palette. Yeah, okay. And Riaz and Zoe, anything to add to that? Well, yeah, go side it. The question is, what are the barriers or what were the barriers? What are the obstacles? Yeah, it's still ongoing, right? The problem's still very much here. Right, but the problems have kind of changed slightly as well, actually. But to speak to Takambu's point, when I, you know, I had exactly the same problem when I started. In fact, I had a different problem entirely because the only other sort of known street food, doing West African food when I started was spinach and a goosey and Broadway market. They were kind of like the most known West African street food. I don't think anyone, there wasn't really anybody doing contemporary West African street food at the time. But I had the problem when applying to street food markets and festivals of just a flat out rejection because it was African, not we've already got an African food store. It was like, we don't understand this, we don't get it, we don't think there's a market and audience for it. So I had that obstacle of creating the demand, if you like. And then the problem was, oh, so when new people come into the market, then the problem was, oh, we've already got African food. And then I would have that same conversation of, well, it's a continent, so you don't have all of those countries covered. And so let's start with West Africa. Do you have anything from there? And then, so this constant piece of education, you know, and I've been lucky to obviously have quite a spotlight on my career, especially since I had the cookbook in 2017. But then there's a new problem because there was always the relationship with African food and the UK media has always been that even when I was doing very well in the media constantly, you know, when I had a restaurant in bricks and all that stuff, there was still this kind of concept of it had to be traditional or authentic. And, you know, that's not what I do. It's not what I've ever said I do. I do contemporary West African food. It's my re-imaginings, you know, and I put that into a bracket. Now there's a new, you know, I have a new category for that, and it's new African cuisine. And that speaks to this idea that I have seen and witnessed around the world, African chefs or chefs in the diaspora who have African heritage, you know, pursuing more of a kind of fine dining angle with it and creating an entirely new type of cuisine from the continent of Africa. But there is still kind of this reductivity, this reductivism in the media, you know, the othering and the wanting of, but is it authentic? Is it traditional? And then you put a recipe in and they're like, can you swap out all of those carnation ingredients for things that people can actually buy? And it's like, well, actually, they can buy it. There's a thing called Google, you know what I mean? It's like, so you have this demand for authenticity. First of all, it's like, what's Africa? We don't get it. Then it's like, oh, we've got Africa, and we think that's enough. And then it's like, okay, we want Africa again, but now can you make it accessible? So you want authenticity, then strip out the authenticity. And then there's the problem of only allowing sort of this one black face in the media at a time to represent something, which is very problematic, obviously, because as the converse already said, we all do it differently. We all bring, all chefs bring a different perspective and their own culture and experience to how they cook and, you know, their own story. Everybody has their own narrative behind it. But there is this kind of rigidity in the form of publishing and recipe writing and all of that stuff as well. There's just so many restrictions, actually, they still haven't really changed. And, yeah, I mean, I could go on for an hour, but I'm not the only person on time. Yeah, from my perspective, obviously, I've never run my own street food or any kind of food business straight up. So from an immediate perspective, which is how I kind of started off, when you look at that ecosystem, you know, the food world doesn't really exist in a vacuum in this country. It's so a part of a greater system that includes magazines, newspapers, books, and TV. And evidently, when you look at the powers that be in those industries that help prop up the food industry, if you're looking for a Caribbean or a black person of power in those positions, you're going to be looking for quite a while. And I think that's, for me, that was one of the biggest barriers is when I'm trying to explain to people, you know, the diversity of food in the Caribbean and West Africa. If I was speaking to someone who was from that region, it would be a no brainer like, Oh, yeah, of course, X, Y, Z. But because we're not, as some people have mentioned before us, it's really like, like base interaction with this cuisine. And I just, for me, it's just, it's, it's annoying to put it bluntly, because I don't feel like other cuisines have to put up with this complete like reduction of their cuisine. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Something you just said made me want to say something and now I've forgotten it. Leadership. Yes. So this is the problem, like the culture of all of the, of the industry. And the perspective of the industry is white, isn't it? Because we don't have any black people and decision making board level of culinary schools of publish of, you know, publishing houses, media organizations. So the point is, there's just a complete massive gap between understanding what a people like us in this panel have to say and how we want to say it and be how receptive the audience is to it. Honestly, I think a large part of the problem I think is because the people in power don't understand, they just don't get it, they don't understand it. And because they don't understand it, they don't have control. And I think that there is, you know, if you don't have people who understand it and get it, there's, it's almost a fear of, oh, we don't want to give this too much room because, you know, we don't really understand it's giving up power, essentially giving space gives power. And I think that's where the problem is in terms of leadership and direction and content and true diversity is because there's a little bit of fear, I think, around giving up the power. And that's what's required really. I think that's really interesting. And I think on things that you've all touched on. And one of my concerns is that, as with other cuisines, I'm going to call it sort of the fuchsia dunlop effect, right? So I think for a long time in this country, say Chinese food was Chinese food as kind of, you know, Chinese takeaway. And in the last few years, now regional Chinese food is being celebrated. And I think, say someone like fuchsia dunlop who, you know, credit to her has done her work and has lived in China for a long time, has almost made it accessible for white people. And I think my concern is that, and I'd be interested to know what you think about this, is almost, you know, are we waiting for a fuchsia dunlop to publish a book about West African cuisine or food from the Caribbean islands before people in this country actually take notice of it? I struggle to see, I mean, and correct me if, you know, if you think there is a possibility about Fondo. Should I ever talk someone? No, no, no, just me. I was finishing anyway. You know, a good example of what you're saying is a cui, right? Look at the clamour that the press had around the cui when it launched. And the fact that Jeremy Chan is, you know, not a Nigerian guy, he's not white exactly either, because I think he is Chinese Canadian, but there is just this, it took this guy, a white guy essentially to be cooking Nigerian food, whether we call it, whether they want to call it that or not, with the Nigerian ingredients for the big guns to sit up and pay attention and be like, oh, oh, we have a fine dining restaurant. Now let's pay attention to West African food. Essentially, that's what happened, wasn't it? Because look at all the rest of us for 10 years. We never met any of those critics in our life, but we've all, you know, us and 20 people before us for 20 years have been cooking amazing West African food, but that didn't get noticed until it's in a specific postcode with a specific kind of class of people going to it. Do you know what I mean? It's like that's safe for them. That makes it like a safe environment to have the relationship with it, and that, you know, in a way that's kind of problematic. And this is what, you know, this is why it's really important for us to have these conversations, because I don't think it's okay for some, you know, people who are outside of the culture to go on holiday for two weeks and then get a cookbook deal out of it afterwards. It's like, what relationship do you have with that country and the cuisine and the culture to be able to have the authority to do that, you know? It's like, but yet the publishing world doesn't have any problem with that, you know, except if I wanted to put in a recipe for fish and chips 10 years ago, do you think anyone would have let me? They would be like, no, you do Ghanaian food, right? You know what I mean? You could have done Ghanaian fish and chips. Many times, but that's my point is, you know, for black people in food, A, we're always really made to be like in our box, like in our lane. It's like, and then we're kind of, there's almost a fetishizing of that as well. You know, April Jackson talked about producer saying to her, oh, you know, are you going to have, is your hair going to be lost, you know, on TV? So they want you to be in the stereotype of a culture constantly. And, you know, when you're not, if you're a white person, you know, historically, white media loves white people discovering other cultures in other food and translating it for all of us, right? All of us don't need that. There's people from the culture who can do that probably better if you were not so lazy and not so scared of letting other people have a voice and some visibility around the, around the subject. And you are still seeing a lot of that now. You know, there's cookbooks coming out all the time where the people are making books about food that's got nothing to do with their culture historically. I'm not saying that that is a bad thing full stop, but it is if you're stopping the people who are from the culture producing similar kinds of work. Yeah. And, and Riaz, I mean, that's what I think was so, so brilliant about community comfort, because not only were people doing food, comfort food from their own culture and their own heritage, but also actually people doing food that that wasn't from, you know, whatever, whatever brought them comfort. And so some people did food that was from their, from their culture and it wasn't. I mean, do you think, do you think books like that and, and projects and your writing, do you think the message is getting through people? I hope so. I think my ambition with that was to give people a platform to cook and show themselves cooking anything that they pretty much wanted. I agree with that kind of pigeon hole discussion where a lot of us who have been in those meeting rooms where people have told us, oh yeah, we'd love you to do this. Or yeah, we think it'd be really cool if you did this from this country and you're from there. So you must know about this. And it feels as though we're being judged in a way where our audience is limited by the amount of black people in the UK as if we can only appeal to other black people when that same pigeon hole doesn't really, it does happen to have our ethnic groups, but I find that for us, it happens the most rigidly where as you mentioned that idea of only being the black person in the room is all we already did. You know, we already published one black person this year. So that quote has been hit for the almost without saying that bluntly. So I feel like we're being judged in that way. And for me, you know, seeing whatever chef the same way going to Italy and then they've got a cookbook about Italy or they've been to France or they've been to wherever and they can get a TV show and many documentary series about that. And yet we still struggle to have the representation about the place where we are all from. So for me, I wanted to show people who, you know, you're from a certain region, but you don't have to be pigeonholed your whole persona, your online persona, your food persona doesn't have to be limited to where you're from. You know, if I'd personally love to see someone who's from the Caribbean and fell in love with Middle Eastern food, I'd love to see their take on that. I'd love to see someone who was from Ghana and they studied in China for a year. I'd love to see what their take on that cuisine was. And we're so far behind that we don't even have a chance to show our own food, let alone to show ourselves doing another food. And I feel like there's some root of intellectualism that people aren't granted. That is the prevention of that. That's what's blocking it. I think, as you mentioned, I'm sorry, Fusha Dunlop, the idea that she can take this kind of education and apply that and bring Chinese food to the UK. It's like, well, we can all do that. But for some reason, it's like white people are granted that esteem, I find. And black people aren't given that certain level of intellectualism or education to be able to, you know, show our foods in a certain way. And this isn't just in the food industry. This is every, this is music where, you know, people think that rappers and DJs can't be intellectuals and in actors where they're pigeonholed. Is that only playing the gangster or the thugs? Or like my brother, for instance, who's a TV writer and all he wants to do is write science fiction and horror and fantasy. And yet he's always pigeonholed into writing London thug crime TV shows, you know? So it's not just, as I mentioned, this isn't something that's related just to the food industry. This is so much broader than that. It's like you said, sort of food doesn't really exist in a vacuum. And I think sort of the prejudice that goes against black people and food doesn't exist in the food vacuum. It reflects the wider prejudice. I think that's a really interesting point, Riaz. And I mean, in terms of sort of access, you've all spoken about difficulties in getting into markets and things like that. And in belly full, Riaz, you spoke about Will Winston, I think it is, the baker who back in the 50s couldn't get a lease. And actually, that sort of thing is still happening now. But people being told the same thing, we've already got, you know, kind of summoning African food and not being able to, someone who couldn't even get a lease in Peckham. And we've got a couple of restaurants that I've opened. You know, we've got a cocoa restaurant, Shishiru in Brixton. So are you going to be in the Tramshed Project at the end of the month? And I realise these are very, very small steps. I mean, but do you think there is hope? And where do you see the food scene, I don't know, in five years' time to combo? So at the end of 2017, I was invited by the food people to speak about the emergence of West African food as a trend to look out for in 2018. And I feel like ever since then, every year, it's like there's a new media breaking news. West African food is the new trend to look out for. And I think all across the, not just here in the UK, even recently, last year in the US, I was there this year, a Ghanaian chef, Eric Ajepong, he made it into the top shelf. I think it was like the last three. And interesting enough to what Zoe was saying earlier on about, even when I feel like with African West African food, you can never really please what the powers there be deemed to be good food. So someone like Eric, who is a trend chef, he does fine dining in my imagination of Ghanaian food. But because the ingredients did not meet the palette of the judges on that show, he didn't win. And that was simply like the feedback that they gave him basically indicated that if he had done what they knew, then he would have been the best chef. So it wasn't that he wasn't the top chef in that moment. It was just not allowed to progress any further simply because the ingredients didn't meet what they expect the standard to be. But I think definitely there has been some progress. I mean, the fact that I was able to launch the London African food week last year, and I was able to do that in partnership with Facebook and Google, it definitely shows that there is an appetite for not just the knowledge, but actually for people to find out where can we eat African food? That's the first question that I'm always getting asked. Where can I go to have Nigerian food? Where are the restaurants? So it's really about, and I think one of the great things that I love about this new generation of African chefs from the different parts of the regions are we are all trying to put African food on the map. So whereas I feel like the older generation, they were fine to have the African restaurant, the Nigerian restaurant in Peckham, where only the what we call the aunties and uncles restaurants, where only aunties and uncles would go on a Sunday or go after work. Whereas now with my generation, we are like literally going to South Bank markets. We're going all over the world to really showcase our food. The internet has been an amazing source of also really showcasing African food. So Instagram has been really great. But also, and I remember, you know, somebody coming to a food market that I was doing in Tottenham and wanting to get Jolli fry simply because of a picture that I posted on my Instagram. She had never tasted Jolli fries before, but just by the power of her seeing that picture and being, you know, in a vicinity of where the market was, she came out on a rainy Sunday morning to undone Jolli fries. And to me, that's what makes this so. This is why we had to keep fighting that battle with the market traders to say we need to have access to this spot. We need to actually have those visibility because if we're not there, then people can't even begin to find us. But I definitely feel like there is so much more that can be done. And I think it's really about us continuing to tell our African food stories in a way that feels true and authentic to us. So it's not really about trying to please anybody, but really to kind of take ownership for ownership of our African food stories and our Black British food story. And that's how that merges together because I remember 10 years ago, going to, you know, Caribbean restaurants or Jamaican food restaurants. And, you know, the idea of seeing Jolli fries in a Caribbean, in a Jamaican food restaurant and taking it place was almost laughable. Now, in certain areas, it's like jerking Jolli off is a thing. So it's really about the way, you know, African and Caribbean food are coming together to kind of tell this new Black British food identity story. Yeah, okay. Okay. And that's interesting because you're saying about people, you know, the woman who came to the food market and wanted to drill off based on your Instagram post. And I think, Zo, you've spoken before about, you know, rather than trying to get access to, I don't know, sort of the mainstream food media and things like that, actually, maybe it's start time to build our own house, rather than trying to, you know, kind of knocking on the door and being locked out of the mainstream house building. Yeah, I mean, that's a drama I've been banging for a few years, actually, but with more further lately, I guess. You know, my experience, I've been really lucky to work in the States quite a lot. And what I've noticed in the States is that a, you get paid as a Black person. B, you get visibility. And C, you're allowed to do it being yourself. You don't have to change your voice. You don't have to like gaze down a white navel in order to do anything. Whenever I'm published in the States, it's me completely. It's me on the page. There's no restrictions to my voice, to how I want to write that recipe, to the ingredients I put into it. And that's where I see progress is that kind of activity. That's, we still got a way to go in the UK, because I'm still getting asked for traditional recipes, air quotes, and then can you give us substitutions for all of these ingredients that are traditional? You know, I'm in the space of, there's so much work for the UK industry to do. And you know, Black Book has been created as a point of reference and to help those in the industry that wants to do the work, but also just to help the people in and outside of the industry who need whatever help they're not getting from, you know, the white gaze of the industry, whatever support they're not getting, we're there to give it to them. And I think that's where I'm optimistic, like Chef Signatures' collaboration with Chef Mike Reed recently, that exhibition where they, you know, went around the country highlighting chefs of colour for an exhibition. And then, you know, Julian's also told me that he's going to be launching in a Black Food magazine soon, off the back of hearing some of our decolonising the food industry talks. And I'm seeing lots and lots of new organisations pop up that there are platforms representation that are filling the gaps that the white media and white food industry aren't providing. And they're Bayman Hospitality, media diversified, equal measures. There's so many new things that have just been created in the last six months. And I mean, you know, it's like there's kind of, you know, I'm lucky, I'm 10 years in and I already made, you know, my relationship with the industry is my relationship with the industry and I've got hard boundaries around, you know, I'm not going to work for free, I'm not going to do this, I'm not going to do that. And I can understand that, you know, people coming into food for the first time, probably are still enamoured by being in glossy publications, being in the Sunday Times, being in the Telegraph, being in the Guardian. I don't care so much about that because actually, I give those publications more value than they give me unless I'm getting paid. But I want there to be more spaces where people don't feel like they have to slave for free in order to get noticed. And, you know, to come to points out, we have social media, it's really easy to build network and community in a digital age, just is. So I'm more about that and connecting people where I can connect people and building platforms where I can build platforms, pivoting my business to lead with purpose and vision. You know, I'm just from now on, that's what I'm about. I'm going to stand for something all day long every day and everything I do. And I think the more of us who do that and speak up, the easier it is for the generations behind us to come, you know. And on that, I mean, do you all, and also I must remind people, we've got a few questions coming in. But please keep on keeping questions coming in. I think we're almost going to be heading into question time. But talking about that, Zoe, do you, the three of you, feel a responsibility for what you're doing? And also, I mean, does it get quite lonely? Because I think you kind of all set out to do what you were doing. And then actually, it ends up taking on so much more of having to be kind of an activist and a campaigner and trying to, you can't just, which I think is something that's really unfair for Black chefs. They can't, or Black people in food, Black people in hospitality and food media, they can't just do what they want to do. They have to be, you know, a mouthpiece for a whole kind of a whole region. I mean, does it get lonely? It used to be fucking lonely to tell you that much. And it's got better. I mean, yeah. And just to speak to that point of responsibility, I do think that's an important one. And the fact that, you know, Black people aren't just, there's so much politics in our existence, you know what I mean? And it's really hard to extricate that from everything else. And, you know, one of the reasons why I pushed and worked so hard with Ghana Kitchen was like, when it got to a point where lots of people knew what it was and who I was, then I felt like I had a responsibility for that to not fail, you know, and that was stressful that, you know, that being forced into media as the voice of Ghana in food. And then feeling like, well, you know, all of these new young businesses who have told me they've started because of what I started, I have a responsibility to not fail because if they see me fail, it's going to look bad and it's not going to look good from an industry. You know, also, I didn't want to give the white industry an excuse to be that RC, told you it was a fad, told you it was a trend. So it does put more pressure on you. It does put more stress and strain. But, you know, as I say, I've, that's been a journey from, you know, I've gone on, you know, I'm in a different place now in a different mindset. So I'm, I've built a community of people around me who I want to support and who support me. And we're all doing pretty good as a result of that. But I just wanted to actually mention this notion of class, which hasn't come up actually. And we still mustn't forget that relationship between race and class in the UK and how disproportionately, you know, black people and not white people are in the poverty bucket or lower middle class or working class or, and that's a problem actually, because even when it comes to appearing, even when you get to a point, right, where you're invited on things like this and people who, you know, I'm not going to talk about it. It's like the people who organize things or pay people for things, they have to understand where people's coming from. Like, do you know what I mean? Some people can afford to spend the whole day for 100 quid writing a 500 piece essay or whatever. Other people can't. They've got kids to feed, they've got bills to pay and they need to get paid properly. And it's like, this whole, you know, that's something that has to be considered. It's like, when we see black men in particular on TV, and the most prominent example coming to me is politicians, right, people who have some kind of semblance of power, apparently. And they always, nine times out of 10, they're black men who are very eloquent and when upper middle class, they've gone to eat and they've gone to Uxbridge, they're all of that. And, you know, there is a danger that that's, we don't want that to happen in the food industry. We don't just want the people from money, power and privilege to be getting those positions. It needs to be a broad spectrum of society from a class point of view as well. You know, and I think that that part of the conversation often gets missed out. So, yeah, good point. I think that intersection is really important, actually. And I mean, to come over, because I've got a few questions, so I'm going to go to questions in a second. But Takumba, I mean, for you trying to get Nigerian food into the mainstream, has that been quite a lonely journey? It definitely was a very lonely journey in the beginning, but I think also because, I mean, I have really loved the way social media has allowed me to create not only a community of, you know, food lovers, but also actually meet other amazing food entrepreneurs, chefs, bloggers who have actually kind of contributed to my journey and my success. So when I started the journey to put together the London African Food Week last year, at the end of 2018, I really didn't have a team. It was just me. I didn't know how I was going to do it. It was an idea that I'd had for a couple of years. I'd gone to New York, I mean, 2017 for the New York African Restaurant Week. So I'd seen a little model of how we could be done. And so I remember in April last year, just reaching out to people in my social network in the food scene and saying, hey, this is what I'm thinking of working, I'm working on. And everybody's response was like, yes, this is definitely needed. And within a short period of time, I was able to get together a team of 12 people to kind of like create this food week. And so to me, it's really about, you know, there is definitely a movement. There's a movement of young African chefs and people from who either have an interest in Africa or who grew up in Africa or who have those dual identity of being Black, British and African, really coming together to push things forward. So in that respect, it's definitely kind of alleviate some of the loneliness of running a business. But I think one thing which Zoe kind of stresses on is a lot of times, and I know I made this mistake in the early days of my business is, you know, people forget that we're trying to run a business, you know, say it's actually a business and, you know, I need to get paid. And when you're telling me your invoice policy is 30 to 45 days after I've, you know, delivered the service, it doesn't make sense to me. So I'm literally like, but if you were to go into Max, if you were to go into a restaurant to get the same level of service, you would pay your bill at the end of the service. So why are you telling me I need to wait 30 to 45 days for my invoice to be paid? And the minute I got to the point in my business where I actually started putting my foot down and say, actually, my policy is payment before service, somehow miraculously, all these big brands managed to make it happen. And it was like, oh, but I thought it couldn't be done. So it's really about letting, so for me, you know, one thing that I do, you know, I do mentor other young chefs and food entrepreneurs is really understanding that, you know, we are trying to create businesses and your business needs to be profitable. And actually, there's also that, you know, if you get to the, because we all have to define success for ourselves. So I remember getting early on in my journey, when I told people, I run a talk about kitchen, they were like, oh, so are you going to start your own restaurants? And for a period of time, I actually started going down that route where I thought, okay, maybe that's the next best thing, you know, I've been doing pop-ups for about two years now, you know, people seem to be enjoying what I'm cooking, and there seems to be a demand for it. And there still isn't that many Nigerian restaurants here in London. So maybe I should start my own restaurant. And then I actually had the experience of running my own restaurant for six months. And in that moment, I realized that I never wanted to have my own restaurant. And that was like my personal decision. And so I made that choice that for as long as, so come to the kitchen will exist for as long as it needs to exist. But there would not be a permanent place for to come to the kitchen. And that is something that I feel, you know, I had to come to kind of like terms with it. And even earlier on in this year with the pandemic, you know, that helps me to kind of like, put to come to the kitchen to rest in a way, because now I'm like, it doesn't have to be my focus anymore. I've got a London African food week, that would be something that I will continue to work on. And to come to the kitchen will exist as and when it needs to exist. And that doesn't feel like a failure. It just feels like I've transitioned to move to something else. Yeah, okay. Okay, great. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to move on to questions now. And Ria, because I didn't get your answer to the last question. I think it's actually, I've been quite interested to hear your response to this. So first question from Geeta Mystery. To anyone on the panel, what is your take on authenticity in terms of recipes, dishes, shop bought or home cooked dishes associated with particular black cultures? Or do you believe fixed recipes from the past generations that make things, or do you believe fixed recipes from past generations that make things authentic only? I think you get the... Yeah, I think for me, food is such a transient thing with regard to time and location. And quite a long story short, I believe that every individual should have a license to put their vision to their food heritage that they want. As we see that, we're usually the ones who are limited to being authentic, but everybody else can do what they want with Italian food and French food and whatever food you name it. But we're the ones who for some reason need to be authentic quote unquote. And like I said, my dream is to see the space and time given for more black people to be more diverse in their wild imaginations in the food world. So that's what I wanted to see. So for some people, that idea of authenticity is somehow needed, but I'm not really too bothered to be honest. I think everybody else should be able to put their crazy visions to whatever they want to do. Is there... I mean, does there come a point where... I mean, do people have to be careful? If people just think, Soda, I'm going to do my own take on this. What do they need to be mindful of to make sure they're doing it properly or respectfully? I will kind of like... there is an hashtag, JollofGates. So if you want to go on Twitter to check it out. A couple years ago, Jamie Oliver in his infinite wisdom decided to cook JollofFries. And actually, the shame about that experience is till today, if you were to Google JollofFries, Jamie Oliver's recipe is the first thing that comes up. Now, JollofFries is a dish that's cooked across West Africa, most West African countries. And it's a dish that actually creates rivalry within West African countries about who cooks the best JollofFries, where does JollofFries originate farm, and what is the authentic JollofFries. The interesting thing about JollofGates was when Jamie Oliver decided to cook his own version of JollofFries, this was the first time West Africans actually united to say, this is not JollofFries. This does not look, it doesn't feel, it doesn't have, they were introductions of ingredients that you would not typically have in a JollofFries. So for me, when we think about authenticity, and I agree with Riaz that we are, food is very transient, and it's definitely informed by the places that we've lived, our previous experiences. I, for example, I grew up in Lagos first. So for me, the vibrancy of eating Nigerian food in Lagos is what I try to recreate here in London. And that's what I mean about, is authentic to my experience, but it's also authentic to my experience as a Yoruba woman, you grew up in Nigeria, because actually, if I was to be cooking food from a different tribe in Nigeria, it would have a different experience. I want to have the authenticity, because I don't want those recipes to get lost. I'm raising a young black British daughter who doesn't tend to, who doesn't have the opportunity to go to Nigeria as frequently as I would like for her to have, but yet this evening I was able to fry puff puff for her, the same way I was eating puff puff when I grew up in Lagos. So the only difference now is I am now putting together a recipe book, because in food, in most African countries, we don't typically measure our food. So I remember when my mom taught me how to cook when I was 12. She didn't teach me with a recipe book. She just told me, you need to do this, you do that, you do this. And there was no kind of like, this is why you cook with this ratio, or this is why you need to cook meat a certain way. It's only now that I've been doing this as a business and having to have consistency in whenever I cook food, especially when I was running my own restaurant, I actually got to understand the need for us to actually document our recipes and actually think about how are we passing those recipes on to the next generation. So for me, in as much as, yes, we can have our fusion and we can reintroduce new ingredients or we can construct dishes. I want my children, I want my daughter, and I want head the future generations to also learn the experience of actually cooking Jalof rice the same way that you would cook it in Lagos, or you would cook it in a village in Nigeria. So I guess it's having the foundations, knowing the family, knowing how to do it. Exactly. Authenticity is essentially that it's having the foundation. So, you know, yes, you can have a Jalof burrito, but that's not Jalof rice. Yeah, it's not. And Zoe, if you can be, because I've got another question after this, that I think is a good one, that would be the last question, but yeah, please Zoe. I just want to say on that, that agreeing with Riaz largely, that, you know, authenticity comes from the person preparing the dish and their relationship with the food and the culture it comes from. If you don't have a direct relationship with the food culture from which you're cooking, then you need to explain how you got there. You need to explain where the original idea comes from and how many iterations it's gone through to be the version that you're showing us as your version, right? And that's what Jamie Oliver should have done. In my house, in my grandmother's house in Kineshi Market in Accra, there's three different women, right? Five years ago, I wanted each of them to teach me how to make Jalof. They all showed me a completely different way, completely different way in the same household, but they're women from three different tribes, right? So to speak to the fact what's authentic for each of them is where they come from in Ghana and how they were shown to make it growing up. So that is going to be different in every single circumstance. So there is no real thing. I mean, authenticity doesn't exist because it will change from house to house, no matter what country you're in. There is a principle of a dish and we all know that Jalof is a one-pot rice dish. It's going to have some heat. It's going to have some red pepper. It's going to have some tomato and onion. We all know that that's the basics of Jalof. Every household in West Africa is going to cook it slightly differently. So authenticity as a label is so reductive, it's almost racist in my opinion. I think that's really interesting. I think it's interesting to have the different viewpoints. And I think this will be the last question. So it's a question from Michelle and if we can have quite short answers to this one so everyone gets to say. To each speaker, what has the support and feedback been like from your respective cultures? Would you say there's a demand? Is there demand and there's their support from Caribbean and Nigerian and Ghanaian communities across the UK? What's the feedback from your own culture? I think there's always going to be some, it depends, right? If you're as to Conroy seems to be saying that she's doing straight up authentic Nigerian or what's authentic to her Nigerian. There's obviously a receptive audience for that, right? But then there's another audience who might want to, who are open to contemporizing that kind of food. And you're always going to have purists in any cuisine and any culture who are like, that's not the way my mother made it. So that can't be it. But in my case, when you're trying to expand the idea of a cuisine, if you're trying to expand what else something could be, like what's the future of Ghanaian food? Not what has the last 400 years of colonization made Ghanaian food into be, what else, what else do we have to play with with those ingredients and flavors? So I'm in a place where it's about kind of expanding what Ghanaian food is, not trying to tell people what it is. Do you know what I mean? So yeah, I've had lots of great support, but also there's lots of people who are purists and who don't get it and they don't like it. And that's okay. That's part of the fun, right? Having that conversation and those disagreements and those discussions. Well, it's not an argument. It's like, this is what I do. Everybody doesn't have to like it. That's why there's plenty of other West African chefs out there because one of them will be cooking what you want, the way you want it. If you don't want contemporary re-imaginings and new West African cuisine, then you're probably not going to come to me, although he's gone to kitchen and you're definitely not going to come to Sankofa, if that's not what you were about. Okay. And Takombe, if I can ask you that, but what's the reception been like? I mean, the reception has definitely been great. I don't think it's simply because I do authentic food. The feedback has definitely been along the lines of eating my food reminds them of eating food that their grandmothers' kitchen or the kind of food that their mom cooked. So the reception has been great from Africans from Nigeria, but it's also been great reception from people who are not new to the cuisine. And I think that to me is the key thing is whether you are eating food that is authentic. And I don't agree that authenticity is linked to racism or linked to colonialism. I think, yes, even within the house, whilst you kind of have differences, generally, if you go to Nigeria and you ask for patty gel or fries, people know what they expect to be given in terms of what patty gel or fries is. And that's what authenticity means to me. So the reception has been great all around. Every now and then you do get people who, this is not for them. And that's fine. And we all have our own personal experiences with food. So whether it's authentic or whether it's contemporary. And again, authentic doesn't necessarily mean that's not contemporary, because actually what is authentic to somebody is contemporary to somebody else. So for me, it's really about what we bring into tasting a new cuisine or tasting an old cuisine redefined a new way. Yeah, okay. Okay. And Riaz, I mean, I guess this is most pertinent to Bellyful, but for these restaurants and these food businesses that have been running for so long with no recognition, and then suddenly you come along and you celebrate them in your brilliant book, which is still available, by the way, to download. What was the feedback from people who feature, but then also in the wider community? Yeah, it was supportive. I think from the stance that as, even though I did feature heavily the older restaurants, I also wanted to get in some of the newer people in the newer generation who were, as you people have said, trying to look forward to what the future of Caribbean food can be. And I think there was a lot of support behind that because it made a lot of those purists question themselves and, you know, question their own biases and prejudice towards that kind of rigid look at their food and say, actually, it can be a lot more. And then people who are from the Caribbean and the wider region were happy to see representation of, you know, different ethnicities, different groups, you know, there's Indian caribbeans, there's Asian Chinese caribbeans. And the bigger message behind that being that, you know, all black people don't represent each other. You know, I'm not, I'm a straight man. I'll never be a Ghanaian woman. I'll never be a Nigerian woman. I'm not coming from that perspective. But the joy of that social need is that we all can support each other. And while we're not the same, and we don't represent each other, we can all still support each other. So I think that's what the one of the benefits of that has been. I'm happy that's a brilliant note to end, Reyes. Thank you. And I, yeah, I concur and long may we support each other and build each other up. And thank you, all of you, for joining the discussion. Reyes to Combo and Zoe. Yes, you know, I found that interesting. I hope everyone else is just not really about me. So thank you very much. And thank you to the British Library. Thank you to Pauline and Angela for having us. And thank you to everyone who's watched. I hope you enjoyed it. And sorry, I didn't get to all the questions. There's some really, really good questions. I'm a bit gutted about that. But there you go. Thank you. And enjoy the rest of your evening. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much, everyone. Yeah, you can, I don't know, DM me the questions on Instagram, Reyes Phillips. Yeah. And, and, and to Combo's kitchen and Zoe, because someone did actually ask about about your question. I don't want loads of questions. Stay out of her space. Constantly having to answer. Yeah, boundaries. All right. Thanks, everyone. Bye. Bye. Hello. I think they, you don't disappear yet because I just thank you from the British Library. So a really fantastic discussion. I mean, there is so this definitely feels like this start of an amazing conversation. It could go on for so much longer. I did not want it to finish. I've taken so many things away. I'm sure everybody has. I thought that was a fantastic. I loved that at the end, you know, you saying Reyes, you know, all black people do not stand for all black people. I thought that was wonderful. And also this idea that, you know, you're all really standing for something and you're making such an impact and such a chair, such a difference. You know, I really looking forward to see like in a year's time when we do the next food season. I'd love to know, you know, what if anything has changed to have, you know, what's still to play for so much. Amazing, all the work you're doing. Crucially, I'm incredibly hungry after having listened to you all, which is also incredibly important. But thank you very much for a wonderful, wonderful panel. Thank you so much for all the audience. There were so many questions. Clearly a lot of people have a lot of questions about this area. That's wonderful. Sorry, we didn't get to all those. If you've enjoyed this evening, we've got two more events left on the British Library food season. On Friday, we have trading places in partnership with Borough Market, looking at the role of markets, supermarkets, small producers and community shops, pretty vital questions given COVID and what that's done to retail and the way that we are all shopping at the moment. And then on Tuesday, our final event is coming alive from the hand and flowers with restaurant with Tom Carridge. And that will be our final event for this season. So thank you very much. Thank you so much to KitchenAid for generously sponsoring the food season. Goodbye and see you all again soon.